cross-posted from: feddit.org/post/37870004

reddit got bad because spez (the reddit admin) restricted API access to the platform for third-party apps, such that people would be forced to use the official app or web UI, both of which display advertisement and collect user data (e.g. scroll behavior).

the reason why this happened is because reddit is a for-profit company and tries to extract money out of the userbase, at the expense of the users.

another example of a bad decision that reddit made was to push a lot of ragebait (“Am I The Asshole?”) because company shareholders want to see “engagement numbers” go up, and if somebody writes an angry reply to a post, that’s “engagement”. but it makes you angry at the stupidity of the “Asshole”, so it makes your day worse. that is another example how reddit makes money at the expense of the users.

size (number of monthly active users) is not what made reddit bad. commercialization is.

we should probably get rid of the “don’t make lemmy grow, it will ruin the platform if we grow” idea.

@davidgerard Everyone at the core of Nvidia has been with Jensen since the early days, if he goes it'll be really really messy because I imagine a bunch of other people are going to suddenly remember they don't have to bother to come to work.

@froztbyte i think it's simply trump not being sufficient to protect jensen any more

and once one affair comes out, the other ten do

SwiftUI isn't accessible by default, and neither is your agent.

@RobW joins EmpowerApps to talk about the work that's still yours: what SwiftUI really gives you, why good XCUITests are accessibility tests, Dynamic Type and custom fonts, why "AI really loves verbosity," WCAG for mobile, and Accessibility Nutrition Labels.

Patreon members can watch the full episode now:

https://www.patreon.com/brightdigit/posts/not-accessible-174590756

@mcc this smells like a reference constness issue in a temporary, but it's hard to diagnose without seeing the full code.

“United Airlines said on Wednesday it would restrict AI bots’ access to its ⁠digital platforms, citing data security, in the latest pushback ​against AI agents ​increasingly capable ​of planning and booking trips for travelers.

“United warned that sharing ‌account credentials with third-party AI ‌assistants could expose sensitive information and lead to unintended purchases, account modifications or the unauthorized use ⁠of frequent-flyer miles.

“It also said automated ⁠AI tools performing actions like flight ⁠check-in — which requires human acknowledgment for prohibited items such as explosives — could ​create regulatory risks.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/11/united-airlines-ai-agents.html

Yep.

And lots of the users on your site will be idiots with think historians talking about Nazi Germany are Nazis.

Banned before they started is hyperbole.

I mean they should have been shut down at the first report of the illegal/pedo activity on the sub, they should have lasted weeks to months at the longest.

They should have never been around long enough for someone like, me, a vanilla layperson who does not go to reddit for porn, to heard about - which is they were around for years before I heard of them and for more years after.

SVU shit happened there. It wasn’t just actors or consensual bs from some freaks. It was, compare that girl to the girl on the missing posters on vicap and the fbi missing people posts shit.

Then the Arabics found the place. They began auctions of their “concubines” giving their real cell numbers.

The issue is really that it’s not really possible to do good moderation (i.e. censorship) at scale.

When the site is centralized, all users have to get the same basic experience. That means someone needs to decide for the entire world what’s allowed and what isn’t. It isn’t just whether you’ll have porn or no porn. It isn’t just whether you’ll have hate subs, or subs dedicated to violence. It’s where you draw the line at politics. Is sexism allowed? What if it’s just a sort-of sexist joke? Can people talk about Nazi ideology? What if it’s a sub for historians?

What makes something like Lemmy better is that each instance can make their own choices of where to draw the line, and other instances can decide whether to federate with them or not. That way an instance running in Germany might have different ideas of where the lines is when it comes to Nazi imagery, and sex, and violence. One in New Zealand might have completely different ideas. If you’re a user from NZ the NZ instance might match your tastes better, but if not, you’re free to sign up for the German one.

Germany Rushes #Surveillance Reform Despite Constitutional Doubts

https://netzpolitik.org/2026/kurz-vor-bundestagsabstimmung-an-welchen-stellen-union-und-spd-die-geheimdienstreform-ausbauen/

We’ve been in the stupidest timeline for many years at this point. But if my pension tanks because some dude can’t keep it in his pants, thats a new level.

WELP spinning up my fresh RSS instance up once more.

rss2imap was interesting and fun to setup, but it didn't handle some of my feeds well.

I eventually just switched to reading feeds off my boox ereader for a while; but longed for the multi device rss experience again. So here we are.

Democrat Scott Colom makes history with victory in Mississippi Senate race. The state’s first Black senator since the 19th century.

A graduate of my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.

@fesshole Next time do Death from "Bill and Ted."

Alas this is the world we live in.

I dont think it is likely to deteriorate in the same way. The mainstream service algorithms reward engagement and make no value judgments about the type of engagement. Since its easier to get engagement by spouting bombastic false claims and unsupportable opinions, that is the bulk of what you see.

Lemmy barely reward engagement, if at all, so the perverse incentive to be a jerk on purpose is simply just not there. Surely, drawing a broader audience will shift discussion toward humanity’s lowest common denominator, but it doesn’t actively encourage the bad behavior, at least.